we'll explore the next life together
by AirgeadAgusFionn
Summary: Keith gets injured on a mission, and Lance tries to cope but calm Keith down. Both at once...


**A/N: this was something I wrote a long time ago for a much longer fic, but I'm never going to finish that. I really liked this scene so I merged it around to make sense with little context. Sorry for the pain?**

* * *

The fall hadn't killed them. At least that's what his side screamed when he finally came to.

Pain.

That was all Keith could feel.

As he opened his eyes, all he could see was a dark lit room… if it could even be called that. It was small. Too small.

Exactly what you'd suppose a trap would lead to.

Keith closed his eyes against the dark. Lance's chest moved in rhythm with the soft breaths on his face, and Keith was comforted by it. He had barely noticed how close his teammate was beyond the pain.

"Keith."

Keith hummed. His side send a wave of pain across his abdomen, and his hands were sticky with blood as he wiped them on his thigh.

"We're going to get out get out of here. We'll get a pod, and you'll heal up, just stay awake." Lance rubbed a hand over his shoulder in a comforting way, and Keith couldn't help but give a small smile as he opened his eyes.

"It's 'kay," he slurred, "at least I won't watch you die. I don't wan' watch you die."

In the dim light of the room they had fallen into, Keith could see Lance's eyebrows furrow and a dent formed between them.

He looked up to hole they had fallen through. It was almost covered over, the floor growing back bit by bit, and Keith knew that neither of them would be getting out again. Hopefully, he'll die before Lance suffocates. He didn't think he can see him die. To see him suffer anymore.

Lance pulled Keith a small bit closer, and Keith could see their breath mingle in the cold air.

Lance looked at him with wet eyes. "There are places we've never been before," he started, and that made Keith look at him. His eyes shone against the dark, deep blue like the ocean but sad with used tears. Lance continued, looking to the closest wall. It was dark, barely visible in the harsh black, "Like, I've never been to Ireland or Paris despite the fact I've always wanted to go. Abuelo used to tell me how he wanted to visit the Alps," he said in an almost regretful sounding voice.

Keith blinked at him. Why was Lance telling him this?

Lance turned back to Keith and smiled sadly. "The next life is just another place we've never been before, and I'm glad we're going to explore it together."

Keith blinked back against the dark spots in his vision. Was he…

No.

Lance wasn't expecting to get out of this alive.

Lance wiped at his cheeks and Keith realised that he had been crying. The pain in his side was slowly fading with his vision.

The blue eyes in front of him seemed to notice this, as he felt the grip on his arms squeeze harder.

"Well, I guess I'm cradling you in my arms now, huh?" he said in a humourless tone, eyes blinking hard against the tears that were filling up.

Keith sighed, accepting that this mission was a bust. There was no way they would have possibly known that ambush was expecting them. No way to look back and change what had happened. Hopefully Pidge and Allura had escaped and reached the extraction point where Shiro and Allura were. Hopefully they were safe.

The room darkened and Lance's face went blurry, and Keith thought back to that morning, when none of them knew that this was going to turn into a hell hole. When everybody was looking forward to the mission with nerves rising high.

Keith only wished that he could wake up in his bed again, just a few hours prior, the little blue space mouse sleeping lazily by his side, and waking to Lance blasting his dreadful music in the next room.

"I'm sorry," Keith breathed. What he was sorry for, he didn't know how to pin it to one specific thing. Just failing to save them, getting blasted and then letting Lance drag them into the pitfall trap.

If Keith had minded where he was going he wouldn't have been shot, and he would have seen the uneven flooring they were about to walk onto.

Lance smiled sadly and his tears finally fell onto Keith's cheeks. A sharp intake of breath could be heard as Lance took his hand off Keith's side to inspect the wound. Keith didn't doubt that it looked bad and that Lance's hand came away sticky with blood.

Keith's blood.

Red was supposed to be his colour, but over the past few minutes he just wanted to stop seeing it. Dotted on his Lance's face from a split lip, leaking from his own paladin armour, being coughed up from his own lungs, smudging against frantic hands as the blue paladin tried in vain to stop the crimson from bleeding through.

He understood now why red was considered an angry colour.

The blue paladin looked back at him with soft eyes, still filled with tears. He opened his mouth to say something, but Keith's vision completely blacked out before he could form the words.

The darkness never left him, and the pain didn't return.


End file.
